Monday 30 January 2012 08.11 EST
First published on Monday 30 January 2012 08.11 EST

George Orwell envisaged that a totalitarian state ruled by Big Brother would be in place by 1984; Arthur C Clarke dreamed of a self-aware computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now Gordon Brown is set to join the ranks of crystal ball gazers after signing up to write a book that will predict where the world will be in 2025.

The former prime minister's 2025: Shaping a New Future, due out in November, will see him speculate that by 2025, for the first time in human history, "the majority of people will live in urban areas and one billion will have a university degree", while families will be under pressure "as a minority of young western adults choose marriage", said publisher Simon & Schuster.

Brown will also suggest "that if the 20th century was the century of women's empowerment through ending women's exploitation, the 21st will be about a higher form of empowerment – women's leadership as a force for change", going on to chart "the massive technological, demographic social and political forces – including the explosive growth of a global middle class" which are "reinventing our world".

The book will be Brown's third in two years: in 2010 he published his take on the global economic crisis, Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalisation, which has sold 14,207 copies to date according to Neilsen Bookscan, and The Change We Choose, a second volume of his speeches. 2007's Courage: Eight Portraits saw him explore the lives of eight "outstanding 20th-century figures", from Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela, while Britain's Everyday Heroes told "the stories of ordinary people whose willing commitment to a cause or a community" informed and inspired Brown.